The Man’s 101st Bad Ending

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Ill fate is not determined from birth.

It’s just that while living together, hearts become misaligned.

There was a time when my relationship with Yuria wasn’t so bad.

It’s just that the period was so short, so long ago that I couldn’t even remember it.

We had both forgotten about it.

A butterfly’s fluttering could sometimes bring a north wind.

Couldn’t our relationship also be viewed from that perspective?

It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that a very trivial matter started it all, leading to my regression.

The headache that had been throbbing since I met Arwen was strangling my rationality as if it would shatter at any moment.

Trying hard to suppress the urge to vomit, I squeezed my eyes shut at the spinning vision.

Even as I bit my lips to endure the pain, I recalled the conversation from earlier.

Perhaps this was the first time I had directly said such a thing to Yuria.

Even throughout all my lives, I never thought of expressing such hostility.

I should have said it and died in the previous run.

Yuria’s expression just now… was quite amusing.

Why was she shaken? Because I said I disliked her?

If that was the extent of the reason, it was rather disappointing.

If she was a woman who would be discouraged by that, why did she treat me like that? I knew she hadn’t harmed me in this life.

However, the way she had treated me since childhood remained unchanged.

Part of the reason I had no choice but to become weak and cowardly like the rumors, trying to live miserably.

It wouldn’t be far-fetched to say Yuria was responsible for some of it.

I didn’t want to blame anyone.

I didn’t want to attribute my own cowering to someone else’s sin.

But it was undeniable that what I had suffered in the past had influenced me.

Although the pain in my head persisted, I gazed at the empty air with narrowed eyes.

This room was also chosen because I didn’t want to run into Yuria.

If it was a room in the corner of the second floor, I wouldn’t have to see her passing by in the corridor.

I avoided eating meals together too.

I had memories of being dragged away by Yuria and beaten if I made a mistake while eating.

I was bound by my sister, four years older, for quite a long time.

It was possible because Yuria took on the role of the lady of the house after Mother passed away.

If I made a mistake, I was scolded, beaten, driven out to wander outside, then imprisoned again.

It happened under Father’s tacit approval, but it was clear Yuria’s will was involved.

Nevertheless, that was what I endured in the past.

Rather, I blamed myself, constantly agonizing over why I was so foolish.

“…Stupid bastard.”

In fact, there was no need for that.

I should have felt wronged by what was done to me and realized something was odd about the situation.

Certainly, I had realized that quite long ago.

After dying the first few times, I noticed something about Yuria was twisted.

But even so, I didn’t give up hope.

Because of the words I had heard when I was young, words I wanted to cherish for a lifetime.

If I loved and did not give up, everything would return to the way it was.

There was a time I believed that.

Now I knew it was wrong.

Inadvertently, a bitter smile escaped, and my gaze turned to a picture frame.

It was a painting with half the face obscured.

Quietly looking at the painting of a woman smiling at someone, drawn quite long ago, I recalled the past I had forgotten.

The reason I was so obsessed with relationships was because of a single phrase I held in my heart.

If asked why I couldn’t give up the Taylor family until the end, repeating 100 lives.

…It was simply because I couldn’t forget the last words Mother left as she died.

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Ilesia Taylor, the woman who was called the lady of the Taylor ducal family.

Yuria knew her well too.

Of course she would.

She was the mother who gave birth to and raised her, how could she not know?

But Yuria disliked Ilesia since childhood.

She only expressed gratitude out of courtesy for giving birth to her, but she didn’t particularly like the ever-smiling face.

The Taylors were the empire’s sword, they had to devote their all to fighting enemies that threatened the nation, always loyal to the emperor.

Thus, they had to always remain cold.

The fact that Yuria rarely smiled was part of the teachings she had learned as a child.

Smiling meant letting one’s guard down, so one must always remain vigilant and prepared for emergencies.

As the Taylors, who held the greatest and most glorious position in this empire, they had to be a model for all nobles.

“Yuria, did you bully Robert again?”

“I never bullied him. He just dropped his fork while eating, so I scolded him in place of Father.”

She could never like Robert, who always ran crying to Mother after being punished.

He might have acted that way because he was only 3 years old, but Yuria found it foolish.

She herself no longer did such things at the age of 3.

When Robert was first born, she had felt quite sorry for him, but as he grew, he only resembled Ilesia more and more.

The children of the Taylors must not be mischievous.

They always had to hide their tears and even their laughter.

Only being cold and rational, handling all situations flexibly, was the Taylors’ spirit.

But her younger brother did not fit that belief.

Just how much punishment should she give him?

At that time, Yuria thought that while looking at Robert.

If he weren’t her brother, she wouldn’t even have this concern.

She would have just let him live as he pleased and get ruined, not caring at all.

Wasn’t it a talent to make her pay attention like this?

Ilesia was staring intently at her.

Was the emotion in those eyes concern?

It wasn’t even funny.

Concern was for those who were lacking.

She was not the target of that concern.

Rather, it would be enough to direct it at her foolish brother.

Yuria turned her back without answering that gaze.

And that was the last time she saw her mother healthy.

She remembered it as a sudden illness.

One day, she suddenly felt sick and collapsed.

She lost her life within a few days.

It was an unexpected death for someone who had always been healthy.

A death that even doctors, priests, and even the young saint at the time could not heal.

It was a strange death, but later she learned that it was a disease for which a cure had not been developed.

“Mom, Mom…!”

She saw her brother crying while looking at the already cold corpse.

What answer was he hoping for from a corpse that could no longer speak?

Yuria could not understand that sight.

She was aware that her mother had died, but she didn’t feel sad.

It was natural for people to die, so even if it was her own mother, it was something that would eventually happen.

It just happened a bit earlier.

Her thoughts on that matter remained unchanged, both back then and now.

Perhaps she had hoped.

That with her mother’s death, her weak and foolish brother’s attitude would change.

But it didn’t change.

Rather, that behavior intensified.

Around that time, she had been appointed as the Young Lady.

In the end, she had no choice but to make a decision.

Hoping her brother would improve a little, she tried to fix him into someone suitable for the Taylors.

The most important thing for a noble is etiquette.

So she tried to correct him even by using corporal punishment.

After a few years passed, it was splendidly corrected, and next, she simply wanted to make him a person befitting the Taylors.

She thought it was right, and even her father said nothing about what she did.

She had lived until now believing it was right.

Because a person of the Taylors should be like that.

“…Robert.”

She muttered while looking at the now empty corridor. But there was no answer.

He had already left, hadn’t he?

There was no possibility of her brother, who had gone to his room, returning here to answer.

Her reason had already judged so, but Yuria was simply engulfed in a confused emotion for the first time.

-I do not despise the Taylor family. However.

It was eyes she had never seen before.

Filled with hatred and disgust towards someone, as if those emotions would become flames at any moment and burn their surroundings.

Eyes she never imagined seeing in her usually weak brother.

But what was unexpected was that those emotions were directed at her.

-I only despise you.

It was an emotion she felt for the first time.

Was this what they called confusion?

It was certain that she had been shaken by those words.

Despise.

The meaning conveyed by that word was clearer than any other.

She had known something was different since a few days ago.

When their eyes met, he used to be terrified, but now he didn’t directly meet her gaze, did he?

The way he stubbornly called her sister became “Young Lady” at some point, and when she got angry, he responded with a calm face instead.

She felt it was strange but left it at that.

Thinking the fundamental aspect hadn’t changed, and with time, he would return to his original behavior.

That’s what she thought.

But it didn’t change at all.

As time passed, those eyes gradually grew colder and more indifferent.

Recalling the eyes that showed no emotion at all, it felt like her vision was swaying for no reason.

In her dizzy vision, Yuria, who had staggered for a moment, leaned against the wall.

-You have no interest in me anyway, Young Lady.

“…That’s not true.”

That wasn’t it.

If she had no interest, she wouldn’t have even tried to make him a person suitable for the Taylors.

That’s not it.

That’s not it-

She just… Suddenly, she realized she was suffocating.

Feeling a sensation of being strangled, she curled up her body, then exhaled while leaning against the wall.

The eyes of the dying Ilesia came to mind.

There was no other emotion in the eyes that had been looking at her.

Rather, only pity remained, eyes that regarded her as pitiful.

Why had she looked at her with such eyes?

She had no shame whatsoever about her actions until now.

It was because she had done what she learned from her father.

Because the Taylors were not wrong, she believed everything would go well if she acted according to that belief.

But why, why did Robert say he disliked her?

If he meant to say what she had been doing was wrong.

No, that couldn’t be. Hadn’t she been taught that way since childhood? She had lived up to the name of the Taylors.

Not smiling, not crying.

She tried to always show a cold demeanor, hiding her own emotions.

Even if it was family.

To Yuria, their family was more important than anything else.

There was something she had vowed as a girl.

Words she had engraved in her heart when she became the Young Lady, a declaration that she would follow her beliefs no matter what happened.

She would become the empire’s sword in the future, so she would adhere to her convictions in any situation.

It was firm.

It did not waver.

Until now, to the extent that she could swear to that full moon.

But if that was said to be wrong, wouldn’t it mean her entire life was in vain?

That couldn’t be.

Yuria, who had barely corrected her posture, stared at the empty corridor.

Her eyes were still shaking, and her distorted expression remained the same.

If someone saw her, they would surely be quite surprised.

It was definitely the first time the face of the woman named Yuria Taylor had been so broken.

“…I am.”

Unable to continue the sentence, she repeatedly muttered only those words.

They were words no one could hear.

On this night when the full moon bloomed, in this stillness, there was not a single person to hear the words that reached her ears alone.

“I am…”

As her voice gradually faded, Yuria closed her eyes with her lips tightly shut.

She had been certain, but now she wasn’t confident calling it certainty.

Weren’t they just trivial words?

The brother she had always disliked simply said he disliked her.

But.

But why was she so perturbed?

In this dawn when her heart was stirring, Yuria blankly gazed at the corridor where Robert had disappeared.

Until the dawn passed and morning arrived.

Just like that, endlessly.

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